Tinkerbell

My littlest sister has started her very own blog. *sniff* She's growing up so fast! I remember like it was yesterday, changing those iddy widdy diapers... *sniff*...

OK. Over it. I think.

Anyway, on one of her posts, my other sister questioned her nickname of Beezneez. I would like to refer her here.

It would seem that she is now the odd girl out, being the only sister wifoub a blog. :)

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Ring Bling

I went to a different jeweler today about the reaction I've had to my wedding ring. Remember that my doctor diagnosed me with a nickel allergy? Remember that I went to see another jeweler who basically told me that there wasn't much he could do? We were ready to see how much it might cost to get the diamonds reset into something that wouldn't, oh, I don't know, cause my skin to blister up and bleed.

Well, Mr. NewJeweler figured out the problem, after informing me that yellow gold does not have nickel in it. "They" (has anyone ever actually met "them"?) only blend nickel with gold to turn white gold into yellow gold. My ring, being yellow gold, doesn't actually have nickel in it... or it shouldn't.

This jeweler actually spent some time looking at the ring with his little eye-thingy. He went through a few minutes of examining and hmmming and ohhhhing while I resisted the urge to chunk my very adorable but very active and curious son through the front plate-glass window of the store and into the street. Getting Jet to stop touching things!! was harder than nailing jell-o to a tree, but perhaps not quite as difficult as herding cats.

Mr. NewJeweler told me that the part of the ring that had the I Love You cut out of it was actually white gold, which had nickel in it. The light bulb went off in my head -- this would explain why I was having the reaction only on the top of my finger instead of all the way around it. So, he said he should be able to cut that part out and it would stop bothering me. He doesn't think it will affect the stability of the ring, but he can fill it in with yellow gold if it looks like it will. Best case scenario: twenty-five smackers and I get to wear my wedding ring again! Yay! Worst case: about $100, depending on how much gold costs at the hour he decides to fill it in. Still not bad, considering we were looking at resetting the diamonds in platinum for around $1200.

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Fantastic Fourth

We had a house full of people for the 4th of July. Jet's Aunt Deanna and Uncle Karl, Grandpa, cousins Big and Little Daisy and another cousin all came over to celebrate. We had lunch, worked puzzles, watched movies, blew bubbles, took naps, and had some fantastic burgers for dinner.


Another friend of ours, whom we hadn't seen for a long time, also came over. She and I were trying to remember when we had actually seen each other, and determined that it had been about five years. (Five years?!?! I thought, Am I actually old enough to have friends that I don't see for five whole years?!?!? And we're old enough and mature enough to still be friends after all that time?) She and I have one of those really cool friendships where you don't have to talk every day to maintain the friendship. We've emailed sporadically over the years, but not regularly.

In fact, I was a little nervous when she decided to accept my invite to come. What if it's all weird and uncomfortable?, I thought. What if we don't really have anything to say to each other? Our lives are so different these days... Jet and Knight are my world, and she's still freewheeling and single...???

I don't know why I worried. We slid into comfortable conversation right away, and spent a fantastic day catching up on each others' lives and families. It was so good to see her!

Most of the towns in our area canceled festivities for yesterday. The whole reason for everyone coming to our house was so we could go wander around the festival in the park and see the parade, but the ground is just too soggy. I had been all excited because it seemed like the first year in a long time that we weren't worried about it being canceled due to a burn ban. It's usually so hot and dry this time of year.

During this not-writing-much phase of mine, we've had literally tons of rain. The main river that goes through our town flooded its banks by 31 feet. My parents' lot backs up to a smaller river; they're in a 500-year flood plain. The water rose really high at their house, too. Their house didn't flood, but the water was probably about 10 feet from their back porch.

Our swim lessons were canceled for several days because the pool is in the park where the river is. The whole park was closed, and then the pool had lost power, so the filters couldn't run... we were supposed to be finished with lessons last Thursday. They were rescheduled to extend into this week, and we finished on Tuesday.

One last thing... Mir referenced a column by Nora Ephron called The Six Stages of Email. Go read it -- it's hilarious!!!

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Whatever shall I say??

The lovely Lady M wrote a post yesterday that really resonated with me. What to do when one's day seemed boring? Does one blog anyway?

I've not posted much this week because I don't know what to write. I've struggled with this before.

I have a hard time choosing WHAT to write about... so much so that I sometimes don't write anything for fear that it will be a boring list of what we did today.

One of my reasons for trying to blog is to practice writing more descriptively. As a science teacher, I write procedural things - very specific, no pronouns, to the point, leave no room for questions. Sometimes I start a post and it begins to sound this way. I usually don't have a "natural flow" for writing... I tend to belch it all out on the page as kind of a list, and then I have to go back and flesh it out with descriptives.

Sometimes I get writer's block for my blog because I think of several things to write about, but doubt whether anyone wants to read about it. Other times, I run out of time and go several days without posting. (You have to understand that I walk around mentally pointing out situations that could be considered blog-worthy, if properly described.) Then I feel overwhelmed because I don't know what to post about.

It doesn't really help that the first blog writer I started reading on a regular basis was Mir at WouldaCouldaShoulda and WantNot. She's just brilliant and witty and funny. Somehow I got it in my head that every post I write should be like that.

Suddenly, though, after reading Lady M's post, I realized (again) that I just need to write. This blog is so therapeutic for me. It feels good to write, to get my thoughts organized, and to have a place to record memories. Diaries or journals never worked for me because I my hand gets tired before I get finished, and I always feel the need to go back and edit things to make the words flow more smoothly. (Someday I'd like to write a post with all of the original words still there, but marked through, just so you could see what I mean, except you wouldn't be able to read it because 75% of the words would be marked through.) But this blog is sort of like an interactive journal... it's fun to read other people's comments.

So, I've apologized to myself for doubting myself again, and for not writing for the last week. Clean slate! Start again! (Or maybe it's Continue!... whatever!)

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Jet's birthday party

... was over a week ago. It was great, even though I chickened out on the cake. I did, however, sell the car mentioned in that same post. I doubled my money on it, too, and bought Jet some Veggie Tales DVD's. I got a heck of a deal on them, I might add.

First, I had received a 50% off coupon for Veggie Tales DVD's from Family Christian Stores. Go sign up on their website, and you'll get their snail mail newsletter, including some great coupons. I read the coupon carefully -- it didn't have any restrictions, so I thought it could be used for more than one DVD. When I got to the store, they had several of the Veggie Tales DVDs on sale for $8.97 (down from $15.99). I picked up four of them, as well as three bargain books for me (at buy two, get one free), and a $5 T-shirt. I also had a 25% off of one item coupon, and a 50% off of one item coupon. The nice girl at the checkout applied all of the coupons just like I wanted her to... and I walked out with 4 Veggie Tales DVDs, three books and a T-shirt for about $22. Yay!

Jet's Aunt Deanna and her family came over, we grilled burgers, opened presents and ate cake. It was perfect!!

My baby boy was ushered into three-year-old-dom in fine style. :P

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